WOLFRAM NOTEBOOK

WOLFRAM|DEMONSTRATIONS PROJECT

Length Scales in the Solar System

​
Zoom
automatic
Sun
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
manual
Planets
magnification
Sun scale
×
2000
Sun
magnification
Mercury orbit
×
60
opacity
orbits
box
years
265.049
A dynamically simplified solar system is constructed from online data to explore the real solar system on many different scales.
The realistically scaled solar system is surprising because nothing is visible due to the presence of many different scales. That is why it is usually rescaled in animations or illustrations. This is nice but gives us a wrong sense of distances and sizes. This Demonstration is intended to show the solar system's different scales in their full glory.
Since it is hardly possible to see anything when the real scales are used, controls have been added to modify the sizes of the celestial bodies.
Wolfram Cloud

You are using a browser not supported by the Wolfram Cloud

Supported browsers include recent versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari.


I understand and wish to continue anyway »

You are using a browser not supported by the Wolfram Cloud. Supported browsers include recent versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari.